


Pavlov's dogs

by MorteMistrata



Series: Lions everywhere [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bedroom Sex, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I sold my soul for this, Meh, Religious talk bc why not, Sex In A Cave, but now it has a plot, i finished it at least, i guess, so deal with it, this was supposed to be just some porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 02:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13965717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorteMistrata/pseuds/MorteMistrata
Summary: “So, you know how with Pavlov’s dogs, he rung a bell before feeding them? And then every time he rung a bell, they’d salivate, even when there was no food?”Lance looks up from his game only slightly. Pidge stands in the doorway, fidgeting with her hands in her pockets. “Yeah?”“So before you eat me out, you always pin your hair back.”“And?”“And you pinned your hair back in training earlier, and it’s still pinned up.”





	1. Chapter 1

Pidge’s head hurts. 

 

She thinks she has a concussion, because each word her mind dances over hurts to conceptualize, and she can only make sense of what’s going on around her in pieces. 

 

There’s Lance, five feet away, the back of his armor smoldering from his gunshot wound. The armor has melted and shattered all at once, and it’s broken pieces allow blood to rise up between them. There’s the dying echo of the ship’s intruder alarms, and the quiet, broken rasp of Lance’s breath. She can hear Shiro and Hunk call out to them over the comms occasionally, but their voices sound too far away and are too loud for her to make sense of. There’s her knee, swollen and bruised from her battle with the Galra commander, and the blood dripping down her nose and pooling in her hair. 

 

In pieces, it makes sense, but put together, she has no idea what to make of it. She manages to pull herself up into a sitting position, and from there, she is able to see the rest of the room. Behind Lance, the commander lies dead, blood pooling around the remains of his jaw. 

 

Pidge’s stomach lurches, and she looks back to Lance. His eyes are fluttering open, and a low moan escapes from his mouth, barely audible over the dying roar lingering in her ears. 

 

“Lance?” Her mouth is dry; her tongue feels like cotton. Lance rolls over onto her back, and starts to cough. “Lance, are you okay?”

 

“M’ fine. Not dead yet.” There’s a wetnness to his voice that scares her. What if the wound’s pierced his lungs? What is no one gets there in time to help, and he dies? Pidge remembers reading over a survivors account of Galra torture methods, and they’d said that drowning in your own blood was one of the worst ways to go. “Pidge?”

 

“Stay there,” She orders, and forces herself move. Standing makes her head spin and brings back that nauseous feeling, so she has to crawl on her hands and knees over to him. She cannot hide the sigh of relief as she settles into stillness once more, and sets Lance’s head on the softness of her thighs. “Can you breathe? Can you feel your toes?”

 

“I don’t feel anything. Isn’t that bad? When you can’t feel anything, it means your body’s given up. The danger’s passed.” Lance coughs, and blood bubbles out of the side of his mouth, and drips into his hair. He raises an arm to wipe it away, not realizing until his hand meets his helmet that he can’t. “Ah, it’ll be fine. Shiro and Hunk started heading our way when you called in about the General. The castle’ll fix everything. S’magic.” He smiles at her, and his teeth are outlined in red. 

 

“My head hurts.” Pidge says dumbly. She can’t think of anything else to say. She can’t remember how they got here or what led up to this very moment. Everything is a stupid, fuzzy blur before she’d woken up, and seen Lance, bleeding on the floor. “Don’t die.” Tears prick at her eyes, and her face hurts with the effort of not crying. “Stop bleeding and don’t die. There’s so much blood.”

 

“M’ fine. Love you, and the story never ends before the hero gets the girl.” Lance’s voice is just a low murmur, and when she holds his hand, he hardly squeezes back. 

 

“Lance?” Pidge blinks and she knows she has a concussion, because quiznack, did he just say that he loves her?

 

Before she can ask him to repeat himself, or tell him that the blood loss is messing with his head, Shiro and Hunk appear in the doorway, one of those floating crates held between them. 

 

“Oh my god. Lance!” Hunk’s voice rises in pitch like a balloon rising into the air as he sees his best friend. 

 

“He’ll be fine. We just need to get him back to the castle.” Shiro says in that comforting leader voice of his, and together, he and Hunk lift Lance onto the makeshift gurney. Pidge stumbles onto her feet as Shiro rises, refusing to let go of Lance’s hand. The room spins around her, and she leans on the side of the crate until it still. 

 

“You probably shouldn’t walk either. Seems like you’ve got a concussion.” Hunk would carry her in his arms if she asked, but she doesn’t. If Hunk has to carry her, then that means she’ll have to leave Lance.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

Hunk doesn’t look convinced, but they don’t have any time to waste arguing with Lance in such a bad condition. Shiro and Hunk start to move, walking as fast as they can without jostling Lance, or making her fall. After a while, Pidge is able to walk despite the constant dizziness, if she closes her eyes every so often. The layout of the ship, which she had known so well before the mission, goes by in an undecipherable blur, and suddenly, she’s sitting behind Hunk in his lion, holding Lance’s hand and trying her damned hardest to keep her eyes open. 

 

She blinks and then they’re heading into the castle, and she has to wonder; is this from a concussion, or from shock? 

 

Coran starts ordering everyone around as they start to pry off Lance’s armor. The heat of the laser fused some of it to his skin, and it’s a dangerous game they’re playing in trying to pry it off. Hunk’s hands move delicately over his best friend’s back, heating and cutting off what he can with a solder-gun, but even so, Lance moans in pain beneath him. Pidge leans against the wall beside the makeshift gurney, and just holds his hand. She refuses to pull away, even when his nails start to dig gouges in her hand. 

 

Pidge isn’t sure how long she stands there. 

 

She measures time by how many vials of painkillers Coran goes through, by the piling of debris on the table, by the size of the bloodstain on the blanket underneath him. 

 

When they stop, Hunk has to pry Lance’s hand from hers. Crescent shaped cuts pattern the surface of her palm, though she hardly notices. She’s too busy watching as they strip Lance, and stuff him into a med-suit. Throughout it all, Lance is far, far too quiet, and much too limp. 

 

After the door closes, the bustling, busy energy of the med-bay stills, and solemn silence falls over them. Pidge sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Blood smears on the white surface of her armor.

 

“Pidge? Are you okay?” Hunk wipes Lance’s blood off of his hands with the sheet, and takes a cautious step towards her, as if afraid that if he walks too fast, he might knock her over. The sight of him moving makes her lingering dizziness flare up again. “You’ve got a nose bleed. And there’s blood all in your hair.”

 

“M’fine.” Pidge mutters. She tries to walk past him, to read the scrolling readout of Lance’s pod, but after only a few steps, the edges of her vision tinge black, and she starts to sway.

 

“Catch her, quick!” Coran calls, and Shiro swoops in to save her. Her head lolls to the side, and the last thing she sees before succumbing to the blackness is Lance’s face, a smile lingering on his lips even in unconsciousness.

  
  
  


Pidge does not dream.

  
  
  


Consciousness comes to her abruptly. She is in blackness, and then she is not. Thoughts return to her mind in a rush, and at the forefront of it all, is a single word. No, Pidge realizes, not a word, but a name. 

 

“Lance?” Her tongue is thick and heavy, and won’t move like she wants it to. She opens her eyes, and finds the stark whiteness of the med-bay glaring back at her. Coran stands alone in front of her, the only witness to her revival, and he smiles proudly at her, like he does whenever she tries her Altean out on him. 

 

She takes a step forward, but the paralysis of the cryo-pod is slow to leave her; Her legs give out after only a single step. She falls forward, but Coran catches her, and sets her back on her feet before she hits the ground. 

 

“Careful, number five. That was quite a head injury you had.” Coran cautions. There is something fond in his eyes, something that speaks of respect for what she’d done for Lance. “Steady now. It’ll take a moment to get your balance back.”

 

She stays slumped on Coran’s shoulder for a moment more, and waits for the buzz of her sleeping nerves to spread from her feet to her legs to her tongue. “Lance?”

 

“He’ll be fine. It was a bad one,” He glances over at Lance’s still resting form, then looks back to her. She squints and tries to gleam what she can from it’s monitor, but her written Altean skills are rudimentary, and it’s too far away for her to decipher. “But he’ll be fine.” 

 

Pidge doesn’t want to leave him; she doesn’t want to take her eyes off of him. She’s got this horrible feeling in her gut, a stupid yearning feeling, like the two of them are opposite magnets.  “But-”

 

“He’ll be up and at it again in about a quintant.” Coran takes her gently by the arm and leads her out into the hall, towards the kitchen. “You do want to be there when he wakes up, don’t you?”

 

“Yeah, of course I do, but-”

 

“Then eat. You can come back to check on number two once you’ve gotten some food in your belly.” Coran says, and she knows that she’d beat. There’s no point in arguing with Coran when he’s really set his mind on something. 

 

Pidge sighs, and stops dragging her heels. “Okay. Fine.”

 

Coran takes her to the kitchen, and tries to replicate Hunk’s special ‘Congrats-you’re-not-dead’ dish, with little success. As he slaves over the stove, scowling occasionally at his sizzling pan, Pidge thinks back on what Lance had said to her.

 

_ “‘M’ fine. Love you, and the story never ends before the hero gets the girl.” _

 

If it had been any other time, if he had worded iit any other way, then maybe she would’ve taken it as a joke. But it hadn’t, and he didn’t. His voice had been deeper than it had any right to be, and his eyes, his stupid, sea-blue eyes had held some sort of feeling that she just couldn’t put a name to. It was the way he’d said it; ‘Love you’, like he’d said it to her a million times before, like he’d whispered it her every night before she fell asleep, that sticks with her. The way he’d said it… it was like he knew that she felt the same way. 

 

“I give up, number five.” Coran dumps his latest batch into the recycler with an exaggerated sigh. “I’ve lived in this castle for nearly a hundred years! And somehow, Hunk runs it’s kitchen better than I ever could. You’ll have to settle for food goo or one of my famous paladin dishes. I’d be happy to make you-”

 

Pidge’s stomach turns at the mere memory of the last time she’d tried ‘authentic Paladin cuisine’. She shakes her head so fast, her vision blurs. “Uh, no thanks, Coran. Wouldn’t want to waste your time. Food goo is fine.”

 

Coran looks slightly disappointed, but all in all, is rather used to the Paladins refusing his cooking. He grabs a plate, and fills it up with food goo. “Oh, it would’ve been no problem, but if you insist.” He sets it down in front of her, along with a spoon and a packet of juice. “Would you like some company while you eat? Shiro is busy with diplomatic talks, and Hunk and Allura are off on some mission of their own.”

 

“Oh?” Pidge asks, mouth full of food. “S’that why you were the only one there when I woke up?”

 

“Shiro would’ve joined me, if not for the Arcanians.” Coran narrows his eyes, and crosses his arms. Pidge wonders what they did to piss Coran off, of all people, but refrains from asking; she probably wouldn’t understand half of what he’d tell her anyways. “They just wouldn’t let him go.”

 

Pidge shoves another spoonful into her mouth. Her stomach feels like a bottomless pit, like it always does after she gets out of the pod. Although biology is more of Hunk’s kind of science than her own, she understands the basis of why they all come out starving. When the body is forced to heal so much, so fast, it burns up a bunch of calories, because it takes up a bunch of energy. She’s got some squish to her body; she always comes out a few pounds lighter and starving, nonetheless. She wonders how it feels for Lance, who is already as thin as a stick.

 

Oh god. Lance. He’d confessed to her just before Hunk and Shiro had come in. The comms were probably on. What if everyone knows about it? What if Hunk is just waiting to come back to tease them about it? She feels a twinge of guilt for joining in with Lance’s teasing about Shay. Karma’s a bitch, isn’t she?

 

“Uh, Coran?” Pidge sets her spoon down on the edge of her plate. “Did Hunk or Shiro mention anything to you about what happened before they got to us? My memory is still a little, uh, fuzzy, as memories can be after a traumatic head injury.” Did that sound natural? It totally did, didn’t it?

 

Coran leans back in his chair and twirls the edge of his moustache as he thinks. “No, I don’t believe so, number five. Everything was so frantic, I don’t think I even asked for their mission reports.”

 

Pidge can’t tell if she should be relieved or worried.

 

“Oh, and one more thing. Can you send me the blueprints for our armor fabrication machine? I want to see if I can add more protection to the back and stomach.” Pidge thinks, no, she  _ knows  _ that if she looks at the design, she’ll be able to prevent an injury like this from happening again. 

 

That fond look returns to Coran’s eyes as he stands, and pushes his chair back into the table. “Of course, Pidge. I’ll do that right away.” He pauses by the door and smiles. The way his eyes crinkle remind her of her father, of how his eyes glisten whenever she impresses him, or makes him proud. “Oh, and don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what Lance said to you.” He mimes zipping his lips. “Advisor’s honor.”

 

Pidge thumps her head on the table and groans.

  
  


As soon as Pidge finishes eating, she changes out of the med-suit into her usual clothes, and  heads down to Green’s Hangar to look over the blueprints. Her goal is simple: prevent Lance from getting any more scars.

 

All of them have scars now, even Allura. Most of them aren’t too bad, but each of them has one or two that’s impossible to ignore. Shiro has his facial scar. Pidge has one on her chest, just under her breasts from a shrapnel cut. Lance had one from the explosion he’d saved Coran from back on Arus, and will undoubtedly have a new one from his most recent wound. It doesn’t bother Pidge so much; after all, it’s not anywhere important, and she never really fretted over her appearance much anyways, but for Lance, every scar seems to haunts him. 

 

They’d never talked about it, true, but she’s known Lance for nearly, what? Five years now? He’s her best friend; she knows.  

 

By the time the castle’s lights dim in simulation of night, she’s found fourteen areas for improvement. If she changes the material used to the hollowed version, it’ll absorb impact better. By adding quilite filament to it, heat’ll spread more evenly across its surface, preventing laserfire from burning through to his skin. If she-

 

“I’ll drag you out of here if I have to.” Shiro says, amusement audible in his tone. “Even gremlins like  _ you  _ need sleep every once in a while.”

 

“But Shiro, I haven’t even fabricated the prototype yet!” 

 

“You’re not going anywhere for the next few days. What’s the rush?”

 

Pidge thinks of Lance, and of the scar on his back. What’ll it look like? Will it be dark, like ash? Pink, like meat left exposed? “There’s- I- I just want to get it done as soon as I can.”

 

Shiro holds up one finger. “You get an hour. And then I’ll drag you to your room if I have to.”

 

“Alright, alright. I get it.”

  
  


Shiro doesn’t have to bother. Not ten minutes after she sends the improved blueprint to the fabricator does she fall asleep in front of her computer, drool pooling onto the sleeve of her sweater. 

 

Pidge doesn’t wake up until her alarm starts beeping at decibels loud enough to kill certain kinds of aliens. For a moment, she considers turning it off and heading back to sleep, but then she remembers: Lance is waking up today. She sits up abruptly, and wipes the drool from the corner of her mouth. 

 

When did she even set the timer? She barely even remembers falling asleep. Oh, forget it. S’not important. 

 

Pidge pushes her chair back, and stretches. A yawn escapes from her mouth, and she wonders if she’ll have enough time to catch a bite before he’s let out. 

 

“Didn’t you hear your alarm, number five?” Coran calls out over the intercom. The sudden disruption startles her, and she jumps back from the desk, where the speaker sits. “You’ve only got five dobashes to get up here!”

 

Her mouth drops. “ _ Five?  _ Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?”

 

“Four doboshes.” 

 

Pidge groans and breaks into a mad run for the elevator. As the door opens on the floor of the med-bay, Coran updates her on the time. 

 

“Three doboshes.”

 

She runs as fast as she can towards it, nearly crashing into walls several times as she turns corners. As she approaches the med-bay door, Shiro turns the corner, and she nearly runs smack dab into him. She manages to catch herself just a moment before impact, with one leg jutted out in the air, and her arms raised in an awkward attempt to keep her balance. She freezes as the cryo-pod doors and Lance comes tumbling out, all long limbs and fluffy hair. She shrieks, and his eyes latch onto her.

 

Lance surveys her; her hair is fluffed up from sleep, and there’s a line of drool on her face. He starts laughing. 

 

Pidge blushes and straightens up. Behind her, Shiro does his best to keep from cracking a smile.

 

Coran claps him on the back and grins. Lance’s smile falters, but only for a second, as Coran’s hand touches his back. “We’re glad to see that you’re all better, Lance! Unfortunately, Shiro and I have some repairs to attend to, so you’ll have to spend the day recuperating with just Pidge’s company. Hope you don’t mind.”

 

Pidge narrows her eyes. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Coran pats her head and grins. “Nothing, number five. Welp, better get back to it. Off we go, number one!”

 

Coran hooks his arm around Shiro’s and drags him into the hall, leaving the two of them alone.

 

“You mind eating with me? Being healed with magic always gets me super hungry.” Lance stretches his arms over his head, and starts to walk after them. “Mind sitting with me?”

 

Lance’s legs are like, twice as long as hers, so she has to jog to catch up with him. “Yeah, sure, no problem.”

 

Lance leads them into the kitchen, and fills up a plate with food goo. He hands it to her, fills up another, then slides into a chair and starts to eat. Pidge rubs furiously at the spit stain when she thinks Lance isn’t looking. He looks up at her as the mice climb into her lap, and then onto the table, and she hurries to pretend that she was doing something, anything else. 

 

“Did you dream any, while you were in there?” 

 

Lance holds his spoon like a cigarette, and watches as the mice gather around his plate to beg. “It’s fuzzy. Something about a party, and my mom. You were there too. I…” He trails off, suddenly bashful.

 

“I was there, and…” Pidge prompts.

 

Lance offers a spoonful of goo to the mice, and avoids her gaze. “I think I was introducing you to my mother, and you were my… my girlfriend.”

 

Pidge stares at her plate and laughs nervously. The mice cross their arms and look at her expectantly. “Wow, um, that’s- that’s something.”

 

They fall into an uneasy silence. There’s the sense of anticipation, like the two of them are waiting for the water to finally spill over, and ruin everything. 

 

“So,” Pidge drawls. “Wanna go play some video games? S’not like you can go training or anything.”

 

Lance grins, and Pidge’s heart thuds heavily in her chest. “I’ll have you know that Allura thinks it’s a form of dexterity training, so it technically counts.”

 

Pidge sticks her tongue out. “And Allura also thinks that milkshakes are made of cow-”

 

“Ah, ah, ah!” Lance grabs her half eaten plate and his own, and tosses them into the recycler. “Don't. Don't say it.”

 

Pidge snickers, and starts for the kitchen door. “Point being, Allura doesn't have a great grasp of human culture.”

 

Lance had commandeered the game system not long after she’d figured out how to hook it up to the castle, so whenever she wants to play, she has to go to his room. She doesn't mind, not really, because Lance’s room is much cleaner than hers, and always smells inexplicably of spun sugar and citrus. Being in there today, has her feeling awkward and out of place. The question lingers in her mind, heavy and unspoken: Did Lance mean what he’d said?

 

Lance passes her the remote, and a game controller, and jabs a thumb at his bathroom. “Go ahead and set it up. I’m gonna go take a quick shower and change.”

 

Pidge nods. “Okay.”

 

She starts the long process of booting up the game system, and leans back against the frame of his bed. 

 

They’ve been best friends for a long time, but she’s best friends with Hunk too. When did whatever she and Lance have evolve into  _ feelings?  _ Well for Pidge, it was a slow thing. She’d noticed that he was good-looking when she first met him, but hadn't really seen him like that until they became a part of Voltron. When did it start to hurt when he flirted with other girls? When had she become jealous of the princess, because Lance treated her like a girl? And more importantly, when did Lance start to see her as more than a friend?

 

Lance stands in the doorway of his bathroom, jeans slung low across his hips, and his hair dripping from the shower and into his collar. “Ready to get beat?”

 

She snorts. “You seem eager to lose.” Lance sits down beside her. He’s close enough for her to smell his shampoo. 

 

“I’m the master of this game. You’ll be eating my dust.”

 

“Seems like you’re all talk. You wanna prove something, you gotta take action.”

 

Lance picks up a controller and picks his character. A bard. Figures. “There’s no need to prove anything if it’s obvious to everyone.”

 

The conversation shifts, and Pidge realizes that they're not talking about the game anymore. 

 

“Well maybe it’s not obvious. Maybe it sounds like a joke, or a mistake. Maybe you do have something to prove.” 

 

“Why? Cause I wasn't serious about the game before? Can't you take things at face value?”

 

Pidge hums and knocks Lance’s character into the way of the dragon’s flame, effectively killing him. The word ‘winner’ flashes on screen. 

 

Lance pouts, and dangles the controller by the cord. His eyes, cobalt blue, such a pretty blue, train onto her curiously, as if she were the only thing worth looking at. “Best two out of three?” He pleads. 

 

Pidge wants to kiss his stupid pouting face. She wants to tangle her fingers in his overgrown hair, wants to tug him down to her height and kiss him. She just  _ barely _ stops herself from doing so. Her cheeks burn as she shakes her head. “I think you should get some rest. I’ve got… stuff to do.” She turns and is out the door before he can even muster a response. 

 

Pidge ends up at her workbench, watching the fabricator apply layer after layer of molten material to the mold, and going over her previous actions with cautious scrutiny. She has nothing to do, and even if she did have a project to work on, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on it. Everytime she tries to work, she thinks back on what she’d said, what she’d done, and then dies of embarrassment. With nothing else to do, she relives the day over and over again in her mind, and falls asleep watching paint dry on Lance’s armor. 


	2. Of what creeps at night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha so here's more. Enjoy your smut.

Pidge wakes up at what feels like three a.m. feeling like a black hole has taken refuge in the pits of her stomach. She groans, and buries her face in her arm, wishing that it’ll go away so that she can return to the blissful nothingness that is sleep, but now that she’s awake and aware, her position starts to wear on her bones, and makes her muscles ache. With a long, annoyed sigh, she sits up, stretches, and then starts for the kitchen. 

 

If she’s lucky, there’ll still be some of Hunk’s leftovers hidden in the back of the fridge. If not, well, she’s eaten stuff far worse than food goo (cough, cough, Matt’s cooking).

 

She’s still half asleep when she stumbles into the kitchen, and almost runs into Lance because of it. Lance juggles with his juice box for a moment, catching it just before it’d’ve hit the ground. Pidge freezes, feeling much like a deer caught in the headlights, and then shakes off her surprise. 

 

“Hi.” Her voice is thick with sleep, and barely audible over the sound of the ship’s life systems. 

 

“Hello.” Lance says back, just as quiet. He leans back on the counter, and sips at his drink. “Funny running into you around these parts. Thought you were upset with me or something.”

 

Pidge shakes her head. “No, of course not. Why would you think that? You just got out of the pod earlier today.”

 

“Well, uh.” Lance brushes his hair back from his eyes. It falls back, tangling with his eyelashes, as soon as he lets go. “There was the thing I said to you, back on the ship, and then later today, you were acting all weird, and then you ran off. You didn’t leave Green’s hangar since.”

 

Pidge… hadn’t considered that angle of it, of how it would make Lance feel. She rubs the side of her arm awkwardly, and shifts from foot to foot. “That’s- it’s not- you weren’t-,” She stops and takes a deep breath. “That wasn’t it. It’s not you.” Not all you, anyway.

 

“Oh.” Lance finishes off his juice box, and tosses it in the recycler.

 

“Can you pass me a-”

 

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Lance hands her a box, and she pokes the straw through the top almost angrily. The mice scurry out from some hidey-hole of theirs, and climb onto the counter to stare at the two of them, unimpressed. Pidge takes a few sips of her drink. Lance taps his fingers on the side of his arm. 

 

“So,” Pidge plays with the hem of her sleeve, picking at a thread until it starts to unravel. “Do you remember what happened before you, uh…” She isn’t sure how to bring up ‘you confessed to me whilst bleeding out’ without turning as red as Lance’s lion, so she stops, and tries again. “All I remember is you bleeding out. I can’t remember much of what happened before.”

 

“Oh? You called for backup ‘cause the Commander, uh, Therad? Theerad? Something like that. Anyway, he’d caught you messing with his computer, and you were fighting him. You called for backup because you’d hit your head, and I came in to help.”

 

“How’d you get shot?” Pidge isn’t feeling so hungry after all. She sets her drink aside and pulls herself up onto the counter beside him.

 

Lance shrugs. “Being awesome, as always. I took over, because you were injured, and he tried to take advantage of that. Aimed at you, and I pushed you out of the way. Shot him at the same time too. You remember what happened after that?”

 

Pidge pets one of the mice softly, and without looking at Lance, admits, “You said that you love me. And that the hero never dies before he gets the girl.”

 

Lance rubs the back of his head sheepishly. “Yeah… that wasn’t my best line ever, but, uh, you got the gist right?”

 

“That was your ‘big romantic gesture’ wasn’t it?” Pidge asks wryly.

 

“Maybe. Just a little.”

 

Pidge slaps his arm. “You doof. You chose  _ then  _ of all times to confess? You stupid, stupid, boy.”

 

“If I was going to die, I wanted you to know. You’re my best friend, and I love you.” 

 

Pidge pushes off of the counter, and grabs his shirt, tugs him down so that his face is level with hers. “You’re a complete and utter idiot,” She leans forward and kisses him. His mouth opens slightly and she shoves her face at him even harder, following the heady taste of mouth, of  _ Lance.  _ As they pull apart, Lance blinks. She wipes spit off of her mouth. “But so am I.” 

 

He shakes his head, one of his quiet little grins pulling at the corners of his mouth. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted that to happen. Can I,” He brushes her bangs out of her face and tucks the behind her ear. “Can I kiss you again?”

 

Pidge nods sheepishly, and Lance ducks his head down, and presses a gentle kiss to the side of her mouth. She can’t tell if that was intentional, or if their height difference somehow messed up his aim. He makes his way slowly to her mouth, and one hand cupping her cheek like she’s the most dangerous thing he’s ever tamed, the other resting gently on her shoulder, as if to steady himself. Her heart beats wildly in her chest, and she thinks to it, be still. A mere kiss should not have her feeling this way, like there is no where else she’d rather be other than here. 

 

Lance pulls back, that small smile still lingering there, and gesture at the counter behind her. “You mind if, um,” He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “If you sat on the counter?”

 

Height difference, she thinks amusedly as she lifts herself up. For once it works in her favor; Lance’ll always be the one with the crick in his neck from stooping over. 

 

“Better?” 

 

Lance stands in the gap between her spread legs, one hand on her knee, the other knotted in her hair, and kisses her again. Pidge hooks one of her legs around his waist, and pushes against him. His hair tickles her face as he sucks on her bottom lip, and brushes against her nose as he trails down to her neck. He grabs her waist securely, the taut, strong grip the opposite of the gentle way that he kisses her, and makes bruises bloom underneath her collar.

 

“You’re- you’re good at this.” Pidge feels breathless, like she’s just finished morning training.

 

Lance straightens up, grins at her like she’s one of those alien girls he always flirts with. “I read a lot of Cosmo back on Earth.”

 

Pidge snorts and kisses the side of his face. “‘Course.”

 

The lights in the kitchen snap on to full brightness. She blinks to adjust her eyes. Lance backs up.

 

“What’re you too doing up?” Shiro steps into the kitchen, the heads of his lion slippers peeking out underneath his pajama pants. With his arms crossed and hair all messed up from sleep, he looks more like a depressed college student than the leader of Voltron. “Training resumes for the both of you tomorrow, and it’ll be harder than it has to be if you don't get some sleep.” He reminds them as he brushes past to grab a juice box. “Good night.”

 

As Shiro leaves, and the door closes behind him, the two of them exchange a look and them promptly bursts into laughter. 

 

Pidge slides off of the counter. “He’s right. You get cranky when you don't get enough sleep.”

 

“Maybe so.” Lance admits. His hand brushes against hers, as if asking for permission, then their fingers link together. “Can I walk you back to your room?”

 

“Yeah, of course.”

 

The next few weeks go by in a pleasurable haze as they get over the novelty of being in a relationship with each other. Holding hands with him never ceases to make her blush, no matter how often Lance reaches for her hand. Besides the new points of intimacy between them, little changes in their relationship; one day Lance jokes that they should call themselves ‘BFWB’, or best friends with benefits. Pidge can't even fault him for it, because it's true. They don't tell anyone else about it, but she suspects that the mice have snitched to Allura, and that Shiro has his suspicions. She feels _good,_ instead of just okay for the first time in a long time. 

Then Shiro starts assigning Lance and Pidge back on missions and the nightmares start.

She dreams of Lance taking shots meant for someone else, of blood and bone instead of warm brown skin. She watches him suffocate after him giving her his hemlet, watches him burn from the safety of her lion, watches faceless Galra slice him into pieces. She watches him die over and over and over again.

Pidge tries her best to hide it. She busies herself with her work during the day, and stays up as late as she can at night to hold them off. Every night, she falls asleep anyways. Every night, she dreams of his death.

Pidge pulls on her pajamas, burrows under layers of blankets, and hopes that tonight she may finally get some rest. 

 

_ Pidge miscalculated. How could she have miscalculated this?! The countdown blinks in the corner of her visor. Thirty-five ticks. Thirty-four. She’ll spend the next twenty ticks running there, leaving ten or twelve ticks to disarm it. _

_ She’d thought that they’d be gone by now, that the prisoners would be freed and safe and there would be no one left on this godforsaken ship except for the droids. But things never go as they should, do they?  _

_ “Lance, is the kid out?” _

_ “He’s heading out on the last escape pod. Hunk’s gonna pick him up. I’m coming your way now.” _

_ Pidge stumbles over her feet, stopping just before she runs into the droid-turned-bomb. “What?! No, get out of here!” _

_ “Too late.” Lance says from behind her. Pidge can't look up, can't waste anymore time arguing. She pulls out the green wires and tries to switch them to force the overload to come to a stop. _

_ The droid begins to hiss from the heat. _

_ “Pidge.”  _

_ The countdown is down to three. _

_ “Pidge.” _

_ “Wait a minute, I-” As the countdown reaches zero, Lance grabs her under his arm and throws her down the hallway, out of the immediate radius of the bomb. He breaks into a run, but he cannot beat time itself. The fire consumes him, melting his armor from his skin like wax.  _

Pidge wakes up in a sweat, sheets tangled around her legs like chains. Her pajama shirt clings to her skin like plastic and for a moment, she thinks that she is burning.

Her hair sticks to her forehead and moves limply when she pushes it back. The image of him burning- skin turning black, shifting to ash before her eyes- lingers. She considers switching on the light and reading, or hooking up her laptop and finishing the code she’d been working on earlier that day, but she’s tired. She’s so tired and all she wants is to get a good night's sleep.

Pidge climbs out of bed and creeps out of her room. She looks down the hall, both ways, and then dashes out and over to Lance’s room. 

She hates feeling like this; irrationally scared for him, when she knows that he can take care of himself just fine, knows that the chances of dying of the job haven't increased since they both admitted to their feelings. 

She knocks on his door, and tells herself that if he doesn't answer, she’ll be fine. She’ll find some other way to deal with it. 

The door opens.

Lance yawns, and rubs his eyes. “Pidge? It’s the middle of the night. Are you-”

She barrels into him, and he stumbles back a few feet before regaining his balance. 

“Pidge?”

Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. “I had a nightmare.”

“Oh.” Lance says, his voice muffled in her hair. He wraps his arms around her and squeezes. She sniffs, her tears dampening his shirt. “It’s okay. I have them too.” He waddles backwards with her until they reach the bed. He falls back and scoops her into his lap, still holding her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Pidge shakes her head. To verbalize it will make it feel more real, and the terror from her dream still has not left her. “I-I-I don't. I can't. I can't sleep, I can't.”

“That’s okay.” He plays with her hair idly. She slumps against him. “You can just stay here, alright? Stay with me until you feel better.”

She doesn't know what to say, but has the feeling that he understands anyways. 

Pidge tugs him down by the shirt to the bed, holds his arm around her as he spoons her. She doesn't grow tired, but the fear begins to melt away, replaced by an all consuming awareness of Lance, of his body pressed against hers, of his breath stirring the hair on the back of her head, of his crotch pressing against the small of her back.

“Are you really turned on right now of all times?”

Lance shrugs and murmurs in her hair. “I was having a dream when you came knocking. And now there's a beautiful girl in my bed. I think I’m entitled to that much.”

“Maybe.” Lance strokes her face, and presses a kiss under her ear, in that sensitive spot between face and neck. 

“It doesn't matter. You can ignore it. Right now, we’re focusing on you.”

But Pidge doesn't want to focus on herself; she wants to push that lingering feeling of fear away, wants to pretend that everything's all right because it's her nature to push her feelings aside when it’s not convenient. And besides that, the intimacy of having him beside her, the feeling of being loved has her feeling warm and fuzzy inside; she doesn't mind.

Pidge turns around, and kisses him on his jaw. “I really do care about you.”

“Yeah, I-I care about you too.” He kisses her back, licks the drying tears from her cheeks.

She slips her hand past his waistband, and he freezes. She wonders if her hands are too cold.

“Pidge, what are you doing?”

Pidge’s hand wraps around his length, maps it carefully from its base to it’s tip. It’s strange, she thinks, how smooth it feels, how the hair on his base feels like stubble, familiar and yet not. “Stuff.”

“Yeah, but-”

She pulls back, wiggles up to face height. “I’m doing something that I want to do.” Pidge squishes his face between her hands. His mouth puckers and she kisses him again and again, until Lance’s eyes are smiling. “So just shut up, and enjoy it, okay?”

Lance still seems hesitant, even beyond the smile, but he nods nonetheless. 

Pidge scoots down again, till she's chest height and can reach his pants again. She slips her hand inside and grabs him again, firmly but not too firmly; like a joystick. 

“Tell me if I do something wrong.”

“Don't think that's possible.” Lance mutters. 

She holds his hand with the other, and slides her hand up slowly, plays with the tip, marvels at the wetness that spreads on her fingers, and then slides down again. Lance makes a sound like he’s choking, stifles it with his hand. 

She furrows her brows and concentrates on his reactions, committing them to memory like one of Iverson’s lessons. When she tightens her grip, he grunts, and his eyes flutter like the power trying to stay on in the midst of a storm. When her palm glides across his shaft quickly after a series of long, slow ones, he groans, and arches towards her, attracted like a magnet to its opposite. When she moves slowly, decisively, he begs, his body rising and falling as he resists the urge to thrust into her hand. 

When he cums, it is a surprise; She’d been studying his face- fluttering, open, unguarded. Warmth hits her hand, creeps through the gaps in her fingers and drips down to her wrist.

“Oh.” She says dumbly, unsure of what else to say.

“Sorry.” It’s dim in his room. The only lights are from the castle’s biolights, bringing energy to each and every crevice. Still, she thinks that his cheeks have darkened, and that a slight blush lingers on the tips of his ears, barely visible beneath his curly, overgrown hair. “I should’ve warned you.”

Pidge withdraws her hand from his pants, and stares painted across her hand. “It’s okay.”

Lance shimmies out of his soiled pants and tosses them aside, grabbing a towel and a new pair in one swift movement. He holds her hand still and wipes it away, then slides his new pair on.

He presses his hand against her crotch. The fabric is damp there, though she hadn’t noticed until now. “You want me to,” he licks his lips, suddenly dry. “Want me to return the favor?”

Pidge nods, a movement somewhere between hesitation and eagerness. He pins his hair back with a bobby pin from his dresser, and then scoots down under the covers with a wink, his bravado suddenly recovered. He tugs her pants down to her ankles, he guides her thighs apart gently, and presses his face into her apex. 

Lance licks her widely, unfocused, and then narrows in on her clit. He circles it with his tongue, and her hands grab his hair, fingers pulling and tangling and urging his closer, harder. He takes her quiet, unsteady moan as confirmation, and keeps circling, sucking, licking, milking her tentative sounds of pleasure out of her.

He grips her thighs maybe just hard enough to leave purpling bruises, and then she’s done. She comes in rippling waves, thighs clenching around his head, hands pulling like she's trying to separate his head from his body. 

She worries that she might’ve hurt him, but when he pops up, face slick with her wetness, he’s grinning like they’ve finally killed Zarkon.

“Good?”

“Great.”

“Good.” Lance says again, flopping onto his back. He wipes his face off with the dirty towel, and then wraps his arms around her again. “Now you really should get some sleep, ‘else we’ll both be tired in the morning.”

“You’ll be cranky.” Pidge murmurs, the afterglow already pulling her towards sleep. “You’ll need it more than me.”

“Mmhmm.” Lance says, and a moment later, his breathing evens out, and he falls into sleep. Pidge follows not long after and for the first time in a long time, she doesn't dream.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried. Idk how much I like it but...

The King of Midland seems frail, and old, and yet, the sword in his scabbard has obviously seen much use. The handle is wrapped in worn leather, and the glint of steel that shows in the gap between scabbard and handle is chipped, and yet razor sharp. 

He walks towards them on four spindly legs, and presents to them a lump of metal. Allura smiles gentilly, and hands it off to Pidge. “Thank you, your majesty. And in return, we offer you our protection, and our friendship; forever, we will be allies against the Galra empire.” Allura continues on with her speech,  _ that  _ speech, the one that they’d helped her recite and remember, that they’ve heard a million times over. Pidge tunes it out and studies the lump.

It’s light for its size, and has many holes and chips from when it was wrenched from the earth. At first glance, it seems natural, unintentional, but as she surveys it closer, it becomes obvious that the holes were drilled in some sort of pattern. Many of the holes are too small for her finger to pry into; the Midlandians have much smaller fingers than humans do. But there are a few that offer purchase. One of the King's guards glance over at her as she sticks her finger inside the biggest crater, and when she looks up again, finger touching what is obviously the inside workings of a bomb, the scene has shifted.

The Midland King steps back, allowing his guard to press forward, surrounding them in a semi-circle of pointed spears, and sharpened swords. Behind them is a cliffside, steep and tall. Pidge had first thought that the treaty was to be signed here for cultural, or religious reasons. Now, it is obvious that it was a strategic choice. Lance raises his gun to his shoulder, and peeks into the treeline, dark and shrouded a couple hundred yards back. 

“Snipers.” He says, as one of the warriors steps forward threateningly. He half-steps in front of her, and Hunk does the same for Allura. “Even if we did manage to get past the calvary, we wouldn’t make it through the sniper-line.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Pidge says. She leans her arm back and tosses it squarely at the King’s feet. The guards closest to him drag him out of the way, shielding him with their bodies, but flesh and blood is no match for fire. “Lance,” She says, and he gets the message, firing a single, low intensity shot at his feet. The shot is too weak to do any physical damage, but hot enough to start the fuse manually. 

The Midlandians scream as the bomb goes off, but then she’s being blown back too, and she realizes with dismay that she’d miscalculated the blast radius, and strength. While Allura and Hunk are able to catch themselves on the edge of the cliff, it’s too much for Pidge, and sends her flying over it, to the lake below. 

She is breathless for that instant, unable to do anything beyond feeling the wind on her face, the push of the air against her back, and then Lance, pulling her to his chest. His face-plate is already pulled down, legs pointed firmly towards the water’s surface; she knows that she should follow his lead, but she’s still disoriented from the blast. It’s all she can do to hold on, as they break the water’s surface.

Pidge can hear the sound of yelling, the roaring of engines, and together, she and Lance chase those sounds. They break the surface near the edge of the water, close to the tree cover. Above them, a search party seems to be beginning, armed to the teeth, not with ornamental weapons, but with the heavy stuff; blasters and other heavy artillery. They climb quietly out of the water and into the brush. 

The trees here remind her of magnolia trees, with lots of thick limbs, and space to climb them. She presses her palm against their trunks, and their branches grow thick with leaves to hide their white armor. Lance watches, wide-eyed, and proud, and follows behind her as she leads them deeper into the forest. Her connection with this planet’s Flora is strong, stronger than usual, and by asking simple yes or no questions, it guides her a cave, where they will be safe until they are able to regroup.

Throughout all of this, they are silent; conversation is not worth chancing being found. As she guides him to the little cave, half-hidden by vines, they finally allow themselves to relax. Pidge pulls her helmet off and sets it on the ground beside her. Her armor and undersuit are weighed down with water too, but she isn’t sure if taking them off is worth the risk. What if they are caught, and she is unprepared?

“You’ll get a cold.” Lance says, unlatching her chest plate, and watching as it dumps a comical amount of water on her lap. “That’s what my mama would always say, if we got wet in ‘dry’ clothes. Dunno how true it is, but you still should probably let 'em dry, if only so you don't have to feel so uncomfortable.”

“But if we’re caught-”

Lance unlatches her shoulders next, and sets them aside. “Then I will run naked with you.”

Pidge considers arguing further, but honestly, she’s uncomfortable and tired as hell, and she's glad to give in. “I'll hold you to it.” She warns, as he unbuckles her legs and feet.

Lance piles it all aside, and then turns away from her. “You can take the rest of it off too. I won't look.”

Ever since that night when cuddling away her nightmares turned into...something else, things have been different between them. They sleep together, most nights, and when the urge arises, something similar to that night plays out, but they have never gone beyond that. Lance has never seen her with less than a sports bra and shorts on, and she has only seen him shirtless a few, accidental times. Pidge isn't quite sure why, but she suspects it’s because of Lance. Although he puts up quite a front, he is the romantic type, and dreams of things like introducing her to his family, and taking her on moonlit walks. 

Pidge tugs on the collar, and manages to pull her suit down to just below her breasts before it gets stuck in a tight roll. “Actually, I could use your help. I think I'm stuck.”

Lance turns, cheeks dusted red. “Okay.” He grips the arms of the suit and spreads them until she can slip her arms out. She then helps him tug the rest of it down and over her hips, and then to her feet. When she steps out, she is completely naked, and slightly cold from the sudden lack of clothes. “Are you, um, are you good?”

“I'm cold.” She says, spreading her stuff out in an orderly line so that it can dry. Pidge brushes her hand against the vines, and they spread, falling like a curtain over the mouth of the cave, hiding them from prying eyes. “But neither of us are hurt, and we’re safe.”  _ For the moment.  _

“Do you, um, want to sit next to me? So that you're not so cold?” Lance pulls his helmet off, and leans back against the cave wall, arm lifted in invitation. 

Pidge plops in his lap, and curls into a ball, one arm draped lazily around her knees. “Send something to Hunk or Allura so they don't worry, and know where to find us. And keep me out of the frame.”

“What? Don't want to flash your ta-ta’s at 'em?”

“I think Hunk would probably just about die.” Pidge says seriously. “Because he'd assume that we were taking the opportunity to do the 'sex’.”

“I’ll have you know that I prefer the term 'making love’.” Lance says, semi-serious as he flips up his wrist computer and angles it carefully away from Pidge. “Hey guys! Can't talk long. Me and Pidge are safe, though, and we’ll regroup as soon as we can. Bye!”

He flips the computer back down to be flat on his wrist, and waits for it to encode itself and send before turning the system off completely. 

“So,” Lance says drumming his fingers on his knee. His eyes skim down her body to her chest, then to the gap between her knees and breasts. Pidge snorts as his lack of subtlety, and leans her head on his chest. “Now what?”

“Tell me about what we're going to do when we get back to Earth.” 

It’s a common topic now, not just between the two of them, due to Voltron’s recent victories. Nearly a third of the universe is now under their protection; the end of the war seems almost in sight. Pidge doesn't have much to look forward to; her family is safe, and they were her main goal for so long, she finds it hard to pine for much else. She likes listening to Lance instead, with his big family, and big dreams.

Lance smiles, and leans his head back against the wall. “Well, I'm taking you to meet my mom, obviously. And then to the beach.”

“I'm getting a sunburn just thinking about it.”

“Shush.” Lance says, patting her hair fondly. “I'll get you a big, floppy sunhat and plenty of sunscreen. You'll be fine.”

“Garlic knots are next, right? And ice cream. Mint chocolate chip.” She’s heard this part enough to taste the conflicting flavors on her tongue, to feel the sun beating down on the back of her neck.

“You seem to have my plans memorised already. You got any of your own?” Lance presses a kiss to the side of her cheek. His skin is warm, like a space heater. 

Pidge leans into his touch, and sighs. “I found my family already, and I have you. And once we get rid of the Galra, well, I've got the whole universe to explore. I’d come back to visit, sure, but I don't think I'd want to stay.”

“What if I wanted to stay on Earth? Would you stay with me?”

Pidge has the feeling that this is a trap of some sort, the kind of question that she can never answer right, no matter how hard she tries. She tries anyways. “I…I would come visit you. I’d come back often.”

“And marriage? Would you marry me?” His questions feel pointed, sharpened, like arrow tips. He leans back, and studies her expression, his gaze guarded.

“I, uh, aren't we a little far away from marriage? I mean, I'm only eighteen, and you're barely twenty.” This is evasion, and she knows it.

Lance shakes his head. “If we were on Earth, in school, then yeah, maybe age would be a problem. But we're not. We're fighting an intergalactic space war. We could die any day now. And- and- I care about you. Wouldn't you come back to Earth with me to settle down?”

“I- I dunno, Lance. This is… a lot to be talking about right now. My parents didn't even bother to get marriage until just before my Dad's first mission. I mean, marriage is a patriarchal ceremony that only has legal merits. If one of us dies, or gets sick, there'll be no question of who decides on the burial rites, or who gets what.”

Lance’s demeanor cracks. He grabs her hands, holds her tightly. “It’s love, Pidge. It's love, recognized by God.”

Pidge remembers the descriptions of Sunday school, the rosary kept in his drawer, the prayers uttered before difficult battles. 

She cups his cheek with her hand, and kisses him, soft and repentant. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to belittle your faith. I just find God in other places.”

“Yeah?” Lance asks, voice soft, broken. His hand rests at the small of her back, and traces delicate circles there as she kisses him again, on his lips, then his chin.

She leans back, and smiles softly; the sun peeking from behind a bit full of clouds. “Yeah.” Pidge repeats. 

“Where?” 

Pidge jabs a thumb at his chest, and then back at hers. “Here.”

Lance’s eyes light up, and the sad look, the one that aches for his family, for a familiar sky, disappears. The way he looks at her, like she’s the only thing worth looking at, has her feeling naked, bare like she's never felt before. Her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

“You're naked, in my lap, and I think you just said the most romantic thing I've ever heard.” One of Lance’s hands trails down to her ass, shifts her down onto the mossy, cave floor. “Would you- can I-”

Pidge nods, and covers her face with her hands. Lance gently pries them away, and kisses her on her neck, causing bruises to form there; hickeys, something they had been cautious to avoid before. A moan escapes from her throat, a dying whimper; she likes the thought of people knowing that she is his, and vise versa. 

Her thighs clamp together in anticipation, and as Lance draws back, he gently pulls them apart. He pulls a bobby pin from the nape of his neck, and pins his hair up, then presses his face to her Apex, gingerly, carefully. He licks like a kitten, soft at first, but as she starts to wiggle beneath him, hands reaching for bedsheets that aren't there, then finding purchase in his hair, he increases in pressure.

Pidge forgets about the world around her, forgets the stone floor pressing against her back, the moss staining her ass, forgets everything, except for him, and that mouth of his, eating her out like she’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. She cums quickly, thighs clenching around his head like a vice around a bolt. 

When she comes down, and opens her eyes, Lance is sitting above her, licking the mess off of his mouth. Pidge feels the urge to blush again, to hide her face, but refrains. She sits up, and pries the pelvis armor away. His erection is visible, even through his undersuit. Lance laughs nervously, and runs his hand through his ruffled hair. 

“Are you- do you want to?”

Pidge unzips the easy access panel, and pulls his dick out. “I'm pretty sure. C'mon, Lance, help me find God.” 

Lance presses her back onto her back, and slides into her with a groan. “You good?”

The feeling is strange, but not unwelcome. Pidge fidgets for a moment, and then nods. Lance holds her hands, both of them, pinning them down to the rock, and starts to thrust, slow and easy. He kisses her, and their breaths echo in each other's faces. 

She's sensitive already from her previous orgasm, and with Lance being so gentle, so thoughtful, so good, she cums before he does. 

“Should I pull out?” He asks, breathless. I have stolen it, she thinks, I have stolen his breath, and his heart, and they are mine.

“No, it's fine.”

And when he cums, she feels warmth; In Lance, she feels god.


	4. The resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished it. I low key forgot how to write smut, but whatever. Enjoy, and remember to read and review.

 

Lance ties his hair into a small ponytail at the back of his neck, and then settles into a defensive position; legs spread slightly, knees bent, his hands raised to guard his face. His body is not tensed, but held loosely, like a dancer about to break into movement. A small smile graces his lips, something about it mischievous, like it’s on the verge of turning into a smirk. There is nothing about this that Pidge hasn’t seen before, but there must be  _ something _ , because why else would seeing him like this make her suddenly feel so hot?

Her ears and cheeks feel flushed, more so than a simple bout of cardio should be cause for. There’s a feeling in the depths of her stomach like the start of a fire- warm, and yearning. Pidge swallows uncomfortably, and takes a deep breath. Lance waits for Keith to make his move.

Behind her eyelids, she sees the highlights of the past few months flash before her; skin against skin, the feeling of something more than friendship, and  _ there _ \- it’s almost so obvious that she wants to kick herself for not noticing it sooner. Lance’s hair has grown longer since they’ve been away from Earth, and while Allura keeps Pidge’s hair at the same length, Lance hasn’t cut it at all. Instead he’s taken to tying it back when it gets in the way, like when they’re about to engage in- blood pulses in her ears as Lance laughs, breezily avoiding Keith’s uppercut like a leaf on the wind- when they’re about to have sex. 

Keith’s lips curl into something like a grimace as he falls back. His strengths lie in his brawn, usually underestimated by his opponents, and in his ability to sniff out his opponent’s weaknesses, and go after them relentlessly. That’s great in life or death fight, which more often than not, is what Voltron is up against. But in a sparring match against a friend, or against someone that he need to disable rather than kill, it leads to hesitation. Lance isn’t a defensive fighter, but he does know the value of waiting to attack rather than rushing in. He likes to draw out his opponents strength by taunting him, and running out his endurance, and due to his years of dancing instruction, he has the agility to do so, remaining just tantalizingly out of reach until he feels that it is time to strike. However, he has a lack of long term strategy, and usually falls back on the same patterns over and over again, making it easy for an attentive opponent to figure him out. Against each other, Keith and Lance are pretty well-matched, and it is hard to tell who will come out on top when they go head to head. 

Pidge keeps focusing on the wrong things; Lance’s face, the swell of his biceps, the rippling of his lithe muscles beneath his shirt. She should be paying attention to his technique, to his evasive maneuvers and Keith’s answering aggression, not the things that look visually appealing. She  _ knows _ what she should be thinking about, but it’s like the correct thoughts are just out of reach. Her eyes keep drifting to the little ponytail, and that mischievous grin no matter how hard she tries to concentrate elsewhere. 

Her thighs clench together, and she struggles not to squirm as a small wave of pleasure runs through her. 

 

Lance waits for Keith to charge him, and side steps his attack. He attempts to elbow him in his back to force him to the ground, but Keith takes the strike as he turns around, violet eyes burning above his gloved fists. Lance steps lightly, shifting from foot to foot, as Keith jabs at him- uppercut, left swing, right swing- that grin of his remaining in place the whole time. 

_ He grins as he leans over her, all length and lanky muscle, his eyes shifting from her exposed chest, to her blushing face. Lance winks, and he shifts down under the covers, nudges her knees apart, and then suddenly there is- _

“Are you okay?” Hunk whispers behind a cupped hand. “You look really red.”

“I’m fine.” Hunk gives her a look, and she sighs. Better to give him a bone then have him looking too closely into the correlation between Lance’s appearance and her sudden onset of awkwardness. “I’m feeling a little overheated. I’m going to go take a shower.”

“Hmm. Okay. Feel better.” His gaze returns to the ongoign sparring session. Pidge quietly slips off of the bench and out into the hall. Maybe a nice, long shower will calm her down until she can get ahold of Lance and…. She sighs and shakes her head. She’s not sure what she’ll do, but she’ll do  _ something  _ alright.

  
  


By the time Pidge is done with her shower, Lance is already in his room in the midst of his usual after-workout facials. She considers waiting for him to finish up, but decides that she doesn’t have the patience for it, and starts down the hall. The ground is cold against her bare feet, and the gentle woosh of air conditioning against her skin has her feeling chilled. She crosses her arms as she reaches his door, and knocks twice. 

“M’ busy.” 

She knocks harder.

“Oh,” He steps in the doorway as it slides open. “It’s you.”

Pidge scowls as she brushes past him. “You don’t have to say it  _ like _ that.”

“Eh,” Lance flops on his bed, his housecoat flying open to reveal his bare chest, and blue boxers. “You made me lose the match today, so I think it’s fair.”

“I left. How could I have possibly made you lose?”

Lance sticks his hands behind his damp hair, and shrugs. “I mean, the show was all for you. Once you left, it kinda wasn’t as fun.”

“Still wasn’t my fault you lost.”

“And I’m still blaming you.” 

Pidge rolls her eyes, and flops on the bed next to him. “I had a good reason for that anyway.”

“Which is?” He asks as he grabs a rag to wipe his facemask off. It stains the towel bright green. He misses a few spots around his hairline, she notes as he tosses the rag aside. She catches it before it hits the ground, and rubs them away. “Thanks,” Lance catches her hands and kisses her knuckles. “But seriously. What’s your reason?” 

Pidge takes a deep breath, and words come spilling out right after like water spilling from a dam. “So, you know how with Pavlov’s dogs, he rung a bell before feeding them? And then every time he rung a bell, they’d salivate, even when there was no food?”

Lance raises an eyebrow, then after a moment, nods. “Yeah?”

“So before you eat me out, you always pin your hair back.”

“And?”

“And you pinned your hair back in training earlier, and it’s still pinned up.”

Lance shrugs. “Am I missing something here?”

“So when I saw you with your hair pinned up,” Pidge wonders how people actually manage to say this kind of stuff without melting into a puddle of human embarrassment, and decides that must be either mentally indestructible, or desperate. She herself falls into the desperate category. She take a deep breath and says in one breath. “ _ IGotWet _ .” 

“Are you- you’re saying that you’ve been conditioned to get wet when my hair is up?” He laughs and flicks the little ponytail. “Well, maybe I should wear my hair up more often.”

Pidge slaps his arm, and tries her best not to pout when he leans forward and flicks her nipple in retaliation. “Don’t you dare.” She says, catching his hand before he can do the same to the other. “It’s bad enough as it is.”

“It?” Lance cups her crotch and presses hard against her. She shudders, and grinds down on him almost mindlessly. “I dunno,” Lance grins as he fingers her bra strap. He examines the beige elastic material like it’s something interesting, and then releases it. It snaps back, leaving a red mark on her pale skin. “I think I like it.”

She could say something snappy, something to make him think twice about his teasing her, but she doubts that that would make him inclined to stop his teasing and  _ get to it already _ .

“You made this problem,” Her words are supposed to be more demanding, less like whining, but they come out like a beggar asking for water on a hot summer’s day. “You need to deal with it.”

Lance grin’s like a cat who’s caught a mouse between his clawed paws as he shoves her back against the bed. She huffs at his sudden roughness, but doesn’t get a chance to protest. He tugs her shirt until the buttons pop open, and ducks his head into the valley of her breasts to lick a hot stripe right up to her neck. If it had been any other day, any other time, she might have complained at his audacity, at his roughness, at the kind of ick that briefly followed his action, but right now, she is running so hot, she doesn’t care. He licks her right nipple, and then cups her tit in his hand, squeezing as he creates a trail of kisses leading from her chest to her neck to her ear. 

His breath is hot as he says, “Am I ‘dealing with it’ right?”

Lance’s other hand caresses the sensitive line above the top of her panties, back and forth, back and forth. Her hips arch into the touch, and she squirms beneath his touch. 

She bites her lip to stop herself from whimpering as she chokes out, “I’ll let you know when you finish.”

Lance tilts his head to the side. His eyes drift over her lazily, never halting anywhere for too long. His hand keeps moving on her breast, kneading carefully, as he decides where exactly he wants to pull the string to take her apart. His eyes smoulder as he kisses her softly, his tongue slipping into her mouth gently as his free hand slips under her waistband, and into her heat. 

“You do that.” Lance teases as he rubs his thumb across her clit. She jolts, and he pulls his hand back. She pouts, and he holds up a finger. “I want to reinforce that ‘conditioning’ of yours.”

“Tease.” She gasps as he peels them away. “No, come ‘ere.”  Her fingers dance over the lithe muscles of his arms as he leans closer, closer; she touches the broadness of his shoulders, wraps her arms around him and pulls him closer. 

His blue eyes survey her face as he dips down and kisses her, gently taking her lower lip in his, testing the skin with his blunt teeth. Pidge kisses back, arching toward him, her fingers tangling in his hair as she tries to keep him there. He pulls back, but she doesn’t release him. 

Lance laughs, and the sound is like audible sunshine. It brightens the room, makes her feel like laughing too. “I can’t exactly ‘finish’ if you won’t let me get started.”

“I know.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

 

“Kiss me again.” Pidge says it like a spoiled child demanding candy, and like a fool, Lance gives it to her. He kisses her again, kisses the side of her mouth, pretends that that wasn’t a mistake and makes a trail down her neck, hot and blazing. 

“Can I move on to your  _ concha _ now?” 

Pidge feels breathless. The words come out haltingly. “I- Uh- I, um. Yes.”

“I mean, really.  You’ve been such a tease today.” He spreads her thighs apart gently, and tsks. “You’ve been wet since training this morning, haven’t you?” Lance leans down, and she sees it, that little ponytail at the nape of his neck, tied away with a twice broken hair tie. He nudges her legs apart, and digs in. 

No matter which way she puts it or how she looks at it, Lance is a teenage boy with no real experience with, well, anyone besides herself. He doesn’t have much skill, and neither does she. All that the two of them really have is enthusiasm, and the desire to do it, no matter how much trial and error it takes to get there. Fortunately for her, one thing Lance has plenty of is enthusiasm. 

He eats at her like she’s the best tasting thing in the world. Lance doesn’t seem to notice that more often than not, he misses her clit. His tongue brushes the side of it, the bottom half, very rarely the center of the thing. He has her drenched in a mix of spit and arousal due to a lack of aim. Pidge’s hands grasp the sides of his head, holding him still as the first waves of orgasm run through her body. She bites her lip as he keeps writhing, keeps moving, even as her thighs tighten around him.

Her hands loosen as she finishes, and Lance leans back, his face darkened with blush and slick with spit. He wipes his face on the back of his hand, and leans back on his hands. His boxers are tented, a small flagpole holding up a sea of blue. 

“I can- I think I can condition you too.” She slides her glasses off, and sets them on the bedside table. Pidge gets to her knees, slides a leg between his, and knocks him onto his back. “If you’re gonna be a tease all the time, don’t think I can’t be one too.”

There’s this little slit in men’s boxers. She knows that the logical explanation is that it’s for easy access for  _ biological reasons _ , but isn’t it interesting how easy it is to slip his dick through that little hole, wrap her fist around the base, and stick it in her mouth.

It doesn’t taste like much to talk about. Salty, kind of, but with a weight that fills her mouth and rests heavy on her tongue. It’s not much to talk about, but the way that it makes Lance groan and twitch beneath her makes it the best thing she’d ever done. 

Half of it is enough to fill her mouth comfortably, the other, still gripped in her palm. She briefly considers copying one of those cheesy pornos she knows he has on his phone, but decides that she’d prefer to not hit her gag reflex and ruin the whole sexy vibe with her sudden nausea and subsequent vomiting. She pulls back slowly, keeping her lips tight around his cock, and then lowers herself again. Spit spills down his shaft, makes her hand slide easier. Lance’s hands reach for her hair, then settles on the bed. Even now, even when he’s supposed to so out of his mind he can’t even tell what decade he’s in (as reported by the last girly magazienze she’d read), he’s concerned about her. If she could laugh, she would. 

Pidge takes his hand and brings it back to her hair, holds it there until his fingers knot into her hair, holds the side of her face and holds her steady as he thrusts forward, never quite hitting the back of her throat, never quite so hard that it’s uncomfortable. He leans forward a little bit, catches her eyes right before he cums. If her mouth weren’t full, she’d be grinning.

When he finishes, and she’s done spitting it out into the bathroom sink, and the two of them are getting sleepy in the mess of blankets and pillows on the bed, she lays her head on his chest, and says, “If it’s like this everytime, I don’t think I’ll mind the ponytail that much.”

 

Lance wears his hair tied up three times the next week. In training again, at midnight when she went to the kitchen for a midnight snack, and once, he put it up spontaneously in the hallway when they’d stumbled into each other after a mission. 

The day after that incident, she takes her glasses off, and leaves them there, and watches through a blurry gaze as he struggles to hide his boner during the rest of the Princess’s lecture.


End file.
